If you have a few old photo albums that are collecting dust on a shelf in your house, now is the perfect time to get organized.

Unfortunately, many of the photo albums that people inherit from family members are paged through once or twice before they are left on a shelf or in a closet. If you’re about to tackle your annual spring clean, you’re probably wondering what you should do with these albums. The good news is that it is possible to preserve them without having to hang on to the physical album.

The reality is that before digital became a prominent part of our lives, absolutely everything was photographed on film and printed for an album. Today, everything is digital and photo storage is that much easier, which is why it only makes sense to find ways to digitize your older printed photos too.

This is not to say that you should get rid of your photo albums but knowing that your most precious memories are being kept in a safe spot offers additional peace of mind.

3 Photo Spring Cleaning Tips

1. Scan the pages of each album. There are a number of apps that will allow you to scan multiple printed photos before they are uploaded to the cloud. Within a few minutes, you’ll be able to scan and store your most precious memories, knowing that whatever happens to the physical photo album, you will always have those photos.
2. Organize your photos using stories, dates, and locations. If you’re going to digitize your old photo memories, why not tell the story behind them? Create folders that will help categorize the photos according to dates and locations. Folder names can be used to describe the theme of the photos contained within them. You can even include a text description in each folder that will provide more details on each collection of photos.
3. Create a family website. If you want to be able to share these memories with all family members for generations to come, why not create a family website where people can access the photos whenever they want to.

Taking the time to sort through old family albums takes a bit of extra effort but you definitely won’t be sorry you did.